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issue 115 of the newsletter

Our campaigns

The proposal of an EU wide reaching European Accessibility Act (EAA) which intends to make the compulsory manufacturing, distribution and rendering of accessible products and services in the banking, telephone, audio visual media, and transport and E-Commerce sectors finally possible, was launched by the European commission in December 2015. Since than long, strenuous and thorough negotiations in the relevant EU institutions have taken place.

Snapshot

Over the next couple of months EBU will be creating a completely new website. The majority of internet access is now carried out on mobile devices (phones and tablets) and our current site is not fully accessible on these new technologies. We also want the website to reflect our new project-based work programme and to better serve and illustrate our campaigning activities.

The Spanish National Organisation of the Blind (ONCE) Sports and Cultural Complex in Madrid will once again host this triennial exhibition, under the slogan “TifloInnova 5.0... A global technology”, from November 17 to 19th.

Once again, TifloInnova – now in its fifth edition - will bring together the principal companies from all over the world, enabling visitors to see the latest innovations and solutions. All the cutting-edge technology under just one roof!

National news

The youth section of the Icelandic Association of the Visually Impaired arranged a Nordic accessibility project in the end of June. A small group of partially sighted youths from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway visited Iceland to explore the visual accessibility of Reykjavik for a few days.

The “Runner In Vista” (runner in sight) initiative consisted of twelve marathons of 5 kilometers held in eleven different Italian cities. It was an awareness and fund raising sport initiative, started by Proxima Spa and Larry Smith Italia with the Italian Union of the Blind and Partially Sighted and the Italian Union for Sport for All (UISP), under the patronage of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) and the Italian Paralympic Committee (CIP).

On July 14, several Portuguese entities - public bodies and institutions representing people with disabilities - organized a conference on accessible elections in the Portuguese Parliament. This was a debate and reflection on the needs and difficulties of people with disabilities as regards their political participation and the exercise of the right to vote.

Announcements

The Onkyo World Braille Essay Contest is a worldwide initiative planned and sponsored by Onkyo Corporation and The Braille Mainichi, two Japanese firms actively engaged in the promotion of braille. Its European strand is run by the European Blind Union.

EBU is pleased to announce the winners of the Arne HUSVEG Award 2017. The Arne HUSVEG Award was established by the EBU Board to honour persons who have distinguished themselves working for EBU in the past. It will be bestowed on the occasion of the meeting of the EBU Board to be held in Cyprus on 21/22 October 2017.

The Award consists of a gold medal, featuring Arne Husveg's profile and EBU logo with the words "Arne Husveg Award" and "He showed the path to full social inclusion".

The winners for 2017 are Birgitta Blockland and Tommaso Daniele.

Feature

For the first time, international human rights law, in particular the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is part of the basis of an international copyright Treaty under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It creates a legally binding international instrument to establish an exception to global copyright law.